


take what remains (and throw it all away)

by cassandralied



Series: a little of you & a lot of bloodletting [1]
Category: Dracula (TV 2020), Dracula - Bram Stoker, Dracula 2020
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Claustrophobia, Descent into Madness, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Episode: S01E01 The Rules of the Beast, Horror, M/M, Psychological Horror, Stockholm Syndrome, The Rules of the Beast, and honestly i think that's something we can all relate to., at this point jonathan harker is sort of just a bundle of stress and bad feelings, held together by really cracked skin, jonathan really loves mina and i don't think the writers appreciate that enough thanks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:35:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22124188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cassandralied/pseuds/cassandralied
Summary: He's going to jump, really. But then the Count mentions Mina.//because watching episode one really spurred my need for chaotic canon divergence.
Relationships: Count Dracula/Jonathan Harker, Jonathan Harker/Mina Harker (mentioned)
Series: a little of you & a lot of bloodletting [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1592500
Comments: 25
Kudos: 242





	take what remains (and throw it all away)

“Johnny…” It’s not the voice of someone pleading. No, it’s the voice of someone who knows he’s holding a winning card, and it’s that more than anything else that grips the newly un-dead mockery of a man with a new sort of fear.

Jonathan glances back at the Count. He’s smiling.

“If you don’t stay with me, Johnny, I’ll be rather lonely.” He tilts his dark head, looks Jonathan down the sight of his aquiline nose. “Do you think your lovely Mina might be willing to keep me company?”

It’s like being doused in cold water. Jonathan gasps through dried, aching lungs. “You -you can’t!”

“I most certainly can.”

“You said if I wrote the-the letters, that you’d leave her alone.”

“I said no such thing, my dear.” He’s walking closer, as close as he can without stepping into the sunlight, and he’s smiling. With Jonathan’s blood on his lips, and he’s smiling, and Jonathan’s mind is a hellish litany of _notminanotminaplease_

“But —”

“It should be easy enough to find her once you disappear,” Dracula muses. “Perhaps she’ll even come to me herself, if I write telling her that I have some idea where you are. Of course, one cannot deny the pleasure of dragging a screaming woman from her bed. It’s still necessary to respect the classics, after all.”

He looks up from his thoughts, sees Jonathan’s frozen face. “Oh, my apologies. I believe you were mid-heroic sacrifice.”

Jonathan can’t have made the wrong choice, because when it comes to Mina, really, there _is_ no choice.

He steps down from the ledge, and he keeps walking until he’s in Dracula’s arms.

“That’s it,” the Count soothes, running his hands up the cracked skin of Jonathan’s forearms. “Oh, you’re going to be _beautiful_.”

“Are you going to beg?”

Dracula sounds only mildly curious. He’s leading Jonathan back into that horrid maze, back into the room with the boxes and the tubes, he’s closing the door behind them.

“I don’t know,” Jonathan admits. His voice is cracked. If he were born a real hero, he’d be comforted in the knowledge alone that he’s saving Mina, but he’s a _lawyer_ , for God’s sake.

The woman —girl, she’s barely a waif —is still dead on the floor with a stake through her heart. _She’s dead because of me,_ he thinks, and wonders if that’s made her better off, if indirectly Jonathan’s freed or damned her.

The Count doesn’t even spare her a glance. He taps the newest box. “In you go.”

Jonathan doesn’t want to be dragged in, to give up that last inch, so he climbs in by himself. His eyes burn, perhaps from death. Perhaps from exhaustion, or maybe he’s just trying not to cry.

“That’s my boy,” the Count says with faux-paternal approval, and maybe that’s what makes the tears start falling. Dracula leans into the small open square at the top of the box so he can keep that unnerving eye contact. He’s holding a hammer. “I’ll come check on you soon, Johnny.” The lines at the edges of those dark, dark eyes crinkle with either concern or sadistic amusement.

“Head up, dearest. This is your chrysalis.”

And then a square of wood is being placed over the window and the god-awful hammering begins.

That’s all it is for eternities. The hammering, and the hunger. Logically, Jonathan knows that it surely only took minutes for the Count to hammer his prison shut, but logic has fled once hunger began in earnest, spreading its legs on the sofa of Jonathan’s mind and demanding attention.

He thinks he screams, sometimes.

Maybe he’s never stopped screaming.

**Author's Note:**

> this adaptation of the count is an especial little shit and i'm enjoying writing him so? i think it's safe to say that if people like this, you can expect more.
> 
> Title from Body by Mother Mother  
> Series title from The Dismemberment Song by Blue Kid


End file.
